Threnody for the Fallen
by Drusilla2
Summary: Jess/Tristan slash. [gasp] Part four in a series.


TITLE: Threnody for the Fallen   
  
AUTHOR: Drusilla --- spikes_pet@canada.com --- http://www.cityofhellville.com/sweet  
  
RATING: PG-13  
  
PAIRING: Jess/Tristan/Rory (Jess' POV)  
  
DISCLAIMERS: I'm only toying with the characters. They don't belong to me. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
WARNINGS: SLASH-y-ness, and quite depressing.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Part FOUR of the Jess/Tristan/Rory fics. Please read those first: "Portrait of a Lone Wolf", "The Temptation of Atë", and "Murder of a Rose" (in that order.)   
  
  
  
--- THRENODY FOR THE FALLEN ---  
  
  
I was so tired of the world.  
  
New York lay sprawled before me, a silvery web, and it was an alien land. I did not know it anymore. I did not know its curves, its little details. The graffiti of polluted stairways and the cracking cement walks. Everything hard, stiff with a strength that was not real. There was no power in the metallic glare of skyscrapers. No magic to the roar of voices, the staccato of rushed steps, the pulses of urban rock. The clash of machinery louder still than thunder. I was a stranger in a world that had left me behind.  
  
I thought perhaps I was mistaken: perhaps this was no New York, but only a terrible dream of a novelist's inventions. But my eyes were opened wide. Prey to the fumes of gasoline and the tang of steel.  
  
I hated the thought of it. City of jagged edges and screaming angles, filthy street corners and the glare of silver that replaced the sky.   
  
I did not miss Stars Hollow: do not interpret it as such. I was wrong there. I was misplaced. Lost to the mercy of a blond-haired boy and perhaps a certain dark-haired girl. But I felt something there. It was a place of emotions. I could love there. I could hurt there. I could pretend there was nothing wrong, and none of it would have mattered. Too easy to pull a mask over one's head and become someone new.  
  
Here I was hard. Sentimentality held no value-- rather, it was a weakness that one was quick to expel. They fled from it as from the threat of contagion. And it was better that way. Better that emotions stay locked safely in one's head until a shrink comes along, or the sharp edge of a knife. Which was fine, as long as one didn't leave a pile of debts or a stain on the carpet.  
  
I collapsed clumsily onto a park bench. Closing my eyes for a moment, and then very carefully, I brought the object between my fingers into my view. God. I trembled as a held it. A thin band of gold, simple, masculine cut, engraved with the curling form of "Tristan" on the inner curve. He'd asked me to keep it once, but I never wore it, and it did hurt him. But I couldn't have done it. It was so-- I wasn't sure what. I only felt a tangle of sentiments gather in my chest like a plague.  
  
The tears were gone. I wept them so long ago.   
  
The taste of him was only a memory. The afterthought of something that was once important. I couldn't reach it. I could grasp the concept of it, a flicker of remembrance in my mind, but it was gone too fast. The substance itself lost forever into history.   
  
My mother told me once that there was no love without loss. I did what she wanted. She was the one God I ever knew, and she fell like Helen. Drunk on freedom and the world. Lost into an unknown realm of insanity.  
  
I needed that sort of absolution. I needed to be cleansed of him, his touch, the feel of his fingertips grazing my skin. The intensity of his eyes. That killed me worst of all. The power in his gaze. I remembered our bodies close, the heat unbearable, yet too perfect to be broken, caught in our own destruction. And that was what we were. A ruination of everything around us. Locked in a war of sorts, a massacre of all things in our path.  
  
I still felt like something whole. Still felt like himbeside me, head resting lazily on my shoulder or on my lap, depending on his degree of fatigue. His hair sloppy, too long for the style, but he didn't care anymore. Because we'd left all that behind. We'd watch the stars and wonder what it would be like, for one moment, to shine.  
  
The ring was cold against my skin. A shiver. What was horror like? I'd never known it. I could not have recognized the dull tremors of my spine, the iciness in my heart. A defect, surely. And the ring shone, still gold after all this time.  
  
I ran my thumb over it once, twice, kissing it slowly. A trophy of sorts, too brilliant. My feet made a little shallow pit in the earth. A grave. I closed my eyes, dropping the relic to be smothered by layers of soil. I needed this, I told myself. Let some beggar find its remains.   
  
With my shoe I gently nudged the earth back into place, and then stood, face hard again. A predator. Eyes cold and fierce. I gathered my bag, swinging it over my shoulder, as I looked back to that sacred spot, the burial ground of a past life, once, and never again.  
  
And said goodbye to him forever.  
  
  
--- END ---  
  
  
  
It's the end for *real* this time. :) I promise no more. Isn't that nice?  
  
Anhow, would anyone kindly review? ;p 


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